


in a faith-forgotten land

by akisazame



Series: the skeletons in both our closets [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Beast (The Magicians), Confronting One's Past, Established Relationship, Fillory (The Magicians), Inspired by Taylor Swift, M/M, Penny Adiyodi Is A Narrative Device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29124924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/pseuds/akisazame
Summary: Margo's image has barely disappeared from the phone screen before Eliot hears the scrape of the front door opening and the rustling sounds of Quentin taking off his coat and shoes. It's only a minute more before he's coming into the kitchen, standing behind Eliot and slipping his arms around his waist. "Hi, love," he says, stretching up on his tiptoes to kiss Eliot's neck and peer over his shoulder. "Mmm, are those blondies?"And Eliot blurts out, "Would you want to go back to Fillory?"
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: the skeletons in both our closets [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2131065
Comments: 14
Kudos: 81
Collections: It Always Leads to You





	in a faith-forgotten land

**Author's Note:**

> i was so content when i finished writing _past me, your nemeses._ wow! i thought. what a great, self-contained fic about not being defined by your past because love will meet you where you are! but something [freneticfloetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freneticfloetry/) said to me when we were discussing quentin's banishment kept nagging at me: "does Penny exist in this universe?"
> 
> this one goes out to everyone who said they'd read more of these boys; i might have been able to let them go if it wasn't for you. thanks as always to [jessalae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessalae/) for being the world's best beta.
> 
> extremely technically, this fic was inspired by "ivy."

It becomes very clear, very quickly, that Quentin is having a bad morning.

They've been using Eliot's bed ever since they started sleeping together — in the non-sexy way, but also in the sexy way — because it's bigger than Quentin's, which has obvious upsides and obvious downsides. The most tragic downside, in Eliot's opinion, is that Quentin will often roll away in the night, and Eliot will wake to find him huddled on the very edge of the bed, not touching Eliot at all. Most of the time it's an innocuous action, stemming from never having shared a bed with another person, but sometimes it's a self-inflicted wound: Quentin, pierced through by his depression, will wake up before Eliot and move himself away, as though it could ever be a hardship for Eliot to hold him.

This morning is one of those, it seems; when Eliot turns on his side, he's greeted by the hard line of Quentin's back. He blinks several times in the sunlight, taking in the tableau of it, and when he props himself up on an elbow he sees that Quentin is curled into a ball, knees pulled up to his chest. He can't get a good look at Quentin's face, obscured by the curtain of his hair, but there's a good chance that he's been crying. "Morning," Eliot says, mostly so that Quentin will know he's awake.

Quentin makes a noise, noncommittal. Not the most worrying way he could've responded, but it's up there. The bed shifts as he rolls over even further, trying to hide himself from Eliot's scrutiny. "Morning."

"Come back?" Eliot suggests. He hears Quentin's response more than he sees it, the scratch of stubble against fabric as he vigorously shakes his head. That, too, is only midrange concerning. He silently watches the rise and fall of Quentin's breathing, waiting to see if Quentin will let him in.

And then, eventually: "Julia's birthday is today."

Ah, Julia Wicker, the quintessential childhood friend. Quentin and Eliot have traded myriad stories back and forth ever since the abolition of the Past Pact, but Julia remains a bit of a mystery, entangled as she is with Quentin's painful memories of Fillory. Eliot could ask questions, technically, but he doesn't; just because their contract is null and void doesn't mean he's lost all sense of propriety. Allowed or not, there are some subjects you should never touch.

Eliot reaches out carefully and brushes his fingertips over the exposed skin of Quentin's shoulder. He's still learning this type of intimacy, and the ways he can combine it with the furious churn of Quentin's emotions; sometimes when Quentin is sad like this, he doesn't want to be touched, but this time he doesn't shy away. Even so, Eliot shifts closer by slow degrees until his arm is wrapped around Quentin's body, tucking the tightly wrapped ball of him back against Eliot's chest. Quentin's hair hasn't been washed in a few days, in apparent preparation for this depressive episode, but Eliot buries his nose into it anyway. "Can I make you breakfast, love?" he asks, cringing internally at the blatancy of his subject change. He doesn't want to make Quentin talk through his breakdown if Quentin doesn't want to. "Pancakes? An omelet? Our finest bread, straight from the toaster?"

Quentin lets out a breath, part sigh, part laugh, but he doesn't answer the question. That's okay, too. Eventually he'll have to get up, make Quentin some toast so he doesn't take his meds on an empty stomach, but they can put that off for a little while. He closes his eyes and listens to the gentle sound of Quentin's breathing, slow and measured, deliberate, like Quentin is timing it to a metronome that only he can hear. Several minutes pass like this, and then Eliot feels it: the minuscule trembling of Quentin's shoulders, rippling along the line of his back where it's pressing tightly to Eliot's chest.

"We never quite mapped out the Earth calendar to the Fillorian one," Quentin says, barely audible, "so we didn't know when our birthdays were, specifically. I don't think it really bothered anyone but me, but Jul—" His voice catches on her name; Eliot lets his arm tighten around Quentin, just a little bit. "She knew why it was important to me. We came up with approximates, for all four of us, and she wanted to make mine into an official Fillorian holiday but—"

That's when the dam breaks, Quentin curling even more tightly into himself as his whole body shakes with the force of his sobbing. Eliot does know the other half of this story, the part that Quentin is only alluding to now: Quentin had spent his sixteenth birthday in a psychiatric ward, and every birthday since has been, to him, a minor miracle. A mark of resilience. Eliot rests his arm over Quentin's, covering his tightly balled fist with his own hand, keeping his own breathing steady next to Quentin's ear so that he can use it to calm himself back down if he wants to.

After a while, when it seems like Quentin's through the worst of it, he whispers, "I miss her so fucking much."

Eliot— doesn't know what that feels like. He doesn't know what it's like to grow up with another person who both loves and accepts you for exactly who you are, in all the ways you change and evolve. But he does know, now, what it's like to love someone so much that you would feel as though a piece of yourself had been ripped away if you ever lost them. Even imagining it, for one fleeting second, is almost too much to bear. Nothing he can say could possibly be enough, so he settles on, "I'm sure she misses you too."

Wrong answer. "Probably not."

"Hey." Eliot shifts backwards on the bed so he has room to pull on Quentin's shoulder, bullying him on to his other side so they're face-to-face. Quentin's red all over, tear-streaked, looking like he wants to retract his head into his body like a tortoise. "Hey," he says again, firm, cupping Quentin's jaw in his hand so he can't look away. He tilts his own head up to kiss Quentin's forehead, his nose, both of his cheeks. "Don't talk about my boyfriend like that."

Quentin huffs out another breathy laugh, like he's surprised that he's capable of an emotion other than sadness. "Yeah, yeah," he says, smile breaking across his face, as beautiful as a sunrise. Maybe more. He unfurls himself and puts his hand on Eliot's shoulder, pushing him over onto his back, Quentin's knees straddling his hips. Quentin's kiss is insistent, and Eliot opens to it immediately; he wants to give Quentin everything, anything that would make him happy, even if it comes in the form of letting Quentin forget.

They kiss for a long while, and Eliot doesn't have any particular destination in mind, but eventually Quentin pulls away, breathing hard. "I don't want you to feel like you have to, like, pity fuck me."

"I would never think that," Eliot tells him. He hates that he'll never be able to quell that little voice in Quentin's mind, the one that insists that Eliot doesn't really want him, that Eliot is settling, that Eliot will leave. It's some fucked up irony, that Quentin can mend everything except himself. He reaches up to trace his fingertips over the curve of his cheek, to brush his hair back from the side of his face. "Do you want to have sex right now?"

Quentin looks conflicted, like he's weighing what he wants to say versus what he thinks he should say. "I kind of always do," he admits, turning his head to kiss Eliot's wrist. "Y'know, now that I'm allowed."

"I'm not talking about _sex as a concept,_ " Eliot says. He can't dwell on the idea of Quentin being _allowed;_ that had always been Mike's fault, and, by extension, Eliot's. He'd been so blind, for so long. "I mean right here, in this moment." His hand moves back down Quentin's jaw, so he can sweep the pad of his thumb over Quentin's bottom lip.

He watches Quentin's eyes slip closed as he sucks Eliot's thumb into his mouth, but then he shakes his head, letting Eliot's hand drop away. "I think you should make me those pancakes," he says, cheeks dimpling, "and if they're good enough, maybe I'll suck your dick about it."

\--

If Eliot were braver, he'd ask Quentin about Fillory. He wants to know everything about Quentin: the things that have shaped him, the places he's been, the people he's loved. It feels unfathomable, now that they're together, that Eliot was ever satisfied with only knowing present-day-Quentin, even if present-day-Quentin is technically the one Eliot had fallen in love with. They spend every night for weeks, before or after or sometimes during sex, asking each other questions, catching each other up on the histories they'd long kept secret. But Quentin has never asked about Eliot's father; it seems fair, _tactful,_ to avoid asking about Quentin's equivalent emotional minefield.

But god, Eliot wants to know. He wants to know about this place that Quentin had loved for so long, the place he'd spent years dreaming of visiting before he'd learned that visiting it was possible. The place that had chosen Quentin as its High King, even if it had changed its mind later. It's that desire that leads Eliot into Quentin's room one afternoon while Quentin is at work, to stare at his neatly organized bookshelf until he finds the Fillory and Further series on the top shelf.

There's a layer of dust along the top edge of The World in the Walls; clearly, Quentin hasn't touched these books since he'd moved in. And why would he? What need does he have for the fictionalized version when he's been there, when he's lived it? Honestly, Eliot's surprised he kept the books at all, after what had happened. He takes the book from Quentin's shelf and a bookmark from Quentin's stack of bookmarks and curls up in his armchair to read. The story itself is simple, not at all the sort of thing that Eliot normally enjoys, but that's not the part he cares about; when he reads Plover's description of Castle Whitespire, he closes his eyes and pictures twenty-three-year-old Quentin there, wearing a crown.

It's not intentional, really, that he ends up hiding the fact that he's reading Fillory and Further from Quentin. Clearly Quentin hasn't read the books himself in years, and reading them in front of him seems gauche. Quentin doesn't seem to notice that they're missing from his shelf, one volume at a time — though, to be fair, Quentin doesn't spend much time in his own room anymore. And of course all of Eliot's best reading opportunities come when Quentin isn't home; why would Eliot spend his time reading, when he could spend it wrapped up in Quentin? So it isn't until weeks later, when he's most of the way through The Flying Forest, that Quentin comes home early and catches him in the act.

"Are you _reading?_ " Quentin asks, delighted, as he's taking off his coat and shoes in the entryway. "Have you been body snatched?" He holds up his hands in a Mann Reveal as he comes into the living room, clearly halfway to another joke when he recognizes the book and the smile drops off his face. "Oh."

Eliot's on his feet in an instant, letting the book tumble off his lap and onto the floor. "I wasn't—"

Quentin brushes right past him, crouching to rescue the book. "Why— Why would you—"

_Because I didn't want to hurt you_ sounds bad. _Because I'm a coward_ sounds worse. "You're right, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"

"Fuck, El," Quentin says. He hasn't gotten back up, kneeling on the floor with the book cradled to his chest. "You could've just asked me."

"I didn't know what to ask," Eliot admits. It's good, actually, that Quentin isn't looking at him; he's always found it easier to tell the truth if he's not being observed. "It's so— so hard for you to talk about it, still. About Fillory. And we ignored it for so long, because of the Pact—"

"No," Quentin interrupts. He twists around until he's sitting, back to the base of Eliot's armchair, looking up at Eliot with an expression that's both sad and confused. "That's not what I meant. I, um." He laughs softly, pushing his hair back with the hand that isn't still clinging to The Flying Forest. "I think it's really sweet, actually, that you decided to read the books."

What? With the pull of a single string, Quentin has unraveled the entire conversation before Eliot's eyes. "Okay," he says. "Then I guess I don't understand why you're upset."

Quentin looks back down at the book before holding it up for Eliot to take. "Look under the dust jacket."

Eliot gently removes the jacket to reveal a drawing, done in various colors of marker directly on the plain gray of the book's cover. It's a crude recreation of the front cover art, a few steps above stick figures in complexity, but instead of Jane and Rupert Chatwin, it's a boy labeled Quentin and a girl labeled Julia.

"Oh," Eliot says.

"My mom was pretty mad, actually, when she found out we'd drawn on the books." Quentin has one knee pulled up to his chest, chin propped on it as he stares down at the rug. "It's not like they were first editions or anything. You couldn't even tell, when we put the dust jackets back on." He lets out a long, shaky breath before he looks up at Eliot again. "I would've bought you your own copies, if you'd asked."

It feels wrong to say _I didn't know._ Of course he didn't know. How could he have known? "I was careful with them, I promise."

"I mean, you did just drop The Flying Forest on the floor right in front of me." Quentin smiles at him, but Eliot can tell it's mostly false. "Sorry, I know it's stupid—"

Eliot sits on the floor next to Quentin, awkwardly wedging himself into the gap between the chair and the coffee table. "It's not stupid," he says, which makes Quentin laugh, shake his head, look away. "No, stop, listen to me." He sets the book down on the table and reaches for Quentin's face with both hands. "It's not stupid to care about things. Okay?"

"That's not what I mean at all."

"Then tell me what you mean."

Quentin tries to move his head, to duck out of Eliot's grasp so he can look away, but Eliot won't let go, and Quentin's eyes flood with tears instead. "I know it's not true, like, objectively, because I do _have_ other stuff, but. Sometimes it feels like— like those books are all I have left of her."

_Of Julia,_ Eliot's brain helpfully adds, as though it was unclear. Quentin's right, he does have other mementos of Julia: photos, mostly, and all their yearbooks from middle school and high school. And that's just what Eliot knows about; there's probably other things, random keepsakes that Eliot would never associate with Julia unless Quentin specifically told him the connection, or that he left behind in his mother's basement when he moved to New York for undergrad. The Fillory books are clearly different, holding a far deeper significance, not only for their emotional history, but because they ended up representing a reality that Quentin and Julia got to live together.

He swipes both his thumbs under Quentin's eyes, wiping away the tears. "You're right. I should've asked you first. D'you wanna buy me a paperback box set?"

"Ugh, _no,_ " Quentin says, surprising Eliot with his vehemence. "The covers for the current rerelease are god-awful. They did this, like, minimalistic Twilight-slash-Fifty-Shades thing, as though Fillory and Further is at all comparable. I'll check some used bookstores, and if that doesn't work I'll try eBay. What's that face for?"

Before, when Quentin had made Eliot smile helplessly like he's smiling helplessly now, Eliot would've deflected with a joke. _The depths of your super-nerdiness truly know no bounds,_ or _what, are you telling me you_ didn't _have any stakes in Team Edward versus Team Jacob?_ But now: "Nothing. I just love you."

"Oh." Quentin has the audacity to blush, as though this is new or surprising information, and it makes Eliot love him even more, somehow. "Thank you? I mean, um, I love you, too."

\--

"You know," Margo says thoughtfully, "I know a guy."

"Just the one?" Eliot teases. "And you'd given me the impression you were worldly, Bambi."

That would've earned him a smack in the arm, back at Brakebills, but now it's just a miniaturized eye roll on Eliot's phone screen. He's got the phone propped on a stack of cookbooks on the kitchen counter, so she can keep him company from her studio apartment in Chicago while he mixes ingredients for the white chocolate and cranberry blondies that Quentin likes so much. "I know more guys than you, Captain Monogamy. But no, I mean..." She pinches her lips together thoughtfully before she continues. "I was thinking about what you said. About Quentin and Fillory."

Eliot had asked Quentin first, before he'd told Margo about Fillory. It had made Quentin laugh, actually, because Eliot has never been shy about the fact that he tells Margo everything, but he felt as though the topics formerly forbidden by the Past Pact probably deserved their own set of rules. Fillory, in particular, deserved its own set of rules. After Quentin had agreed that it was okay to tell her but that he didn't want to be present for the telling, Margo had accused Eliot of lying for a solid five minutes before finally settling back in her chair with a murmured _huh. how about that?_ She'd never been Quentin-levels of obsessed with Fillory, but Eliot imagines it would still be a kick in the ass to learn that the universe of a beloved fantasy series is actually real.

They hadn't talked about it again after that first time; Eliot and Margo still cling to the glorious mega-bitch lifestyle, but they'd never stoop so low as to gossip about someone's source of trauma, so it takes a moment for Eliot's brain to catch up with Margo's non sequitur. Whatever Eliot had said about Quentin and Fillory was weeks ago, now. "And that led you to _I know a guy_?"

"Yeah." Margo's teeth catch her lower lip, uncharacteristically nervous. "Technically, Alice knows the guy."

"And, seeing as you know Alice carnally, you know the guy by extension."

"Listen, I know this isn't our MO, but can you maybe cut the color commentary on my sex life for thirty seconds?" Eliot waves a go-ahead hand at the phone. "He was in Alice and Kady's year at Brakebills. He dated Kady, actually, though I don't remember him at any Cottage parties, so you probably never met him. Penny Adiyodi?"

"Doesn't ring a bell." Maybe in another life, Eliot would've cut a swathe through all the boys the year below theirs, but his belief that Mike had actually wanted to be exclusive had put a stop to that particular brand of hedonism. Truly a pity; this world would be a better place if Eliot had been allowed to instruct an entire contingent of baby gays in the fine art of putting their mouths to good use.

"He's a Traveler," Margo says. "Like, a really good one. He could probably get Quentin to Fillory no problem. Maybe take you along too, if you want."

Eliot— doesn't know what to say. He'd assumed that when Quentin said he'd been kicked out, what he meant was _banished,_ unable to return. It had never occurred to Eliot to look for possible loopholes. Truthfully, it had never occurred to Eliot that Quentin might want to go back to Fillory at all. "I'd have to talk to Quentin first."

"Obviously." Margo's face gets larger in the image, as she either brings the phone closer to her face or leans in towards it. "I haven't said a word to Penny yet, so if Quentin's not interested then it's no skin off our tits. But I know for an absolute fuckin' fact that if you and I were trapped on different worlds, I'd give my right eye to be able to see you again."

"You wouldn't be seeing me very well, if you had to give up an eye," Eliot tells her, attempting to cover up the fact that he's— weirdly touched by that sentiment.

"I don't need both eyes to see through your bullshit, you big softie." Ah, well, the attempt was made. "Just talk to your man about it. Let me know if he's in and I'll have Adiyodi pop over to Brooklyn whenever you want. The guy owes me a favor."

"And why, pray tell, does he owe you a favor?"

"I'll figure out a reason," Margo says, grinning deviously. "Ciao, darling."

Margo's image has barely disappeared from the phone screen before Eliot hears the scrape of the front door opening and the rustling sounds of Quentin taking off his coat and shoes. It's only a minute more before he's coming into the kitchen, standing behind Eliot and slipping his arms around his waist. "Hi, love," he says, stretching up on his tiptoes to kiss Eliot's neck and peer over his shoulder. "Mmm, are those blondies?"

And Eliot blurts out, "Would you want to go back to Fillory?"

He feels Quentin's entire body tense up behind him, his arms going rigid before he lets go and steps away. "El," he says, like a warning.

"Sorry, forget I asked." He can't believe he even entertained the idea for a second. When Eliot's mother had wanted to meet up to divest herself of the entire sordid business regarding Eliot's magical family legacy, Eliot had immediately insisted that she come to New York and not the other way around. The idea of returning to Indiana, even now that matters are settled and boundaries are firmly redrawn, makes Eliot's stomach turn over. "Margo said something to me about her Traveler friend, or, well, friend-of-a-friend, and she thought maybe he could get you to Fillory but I completely understand if—"

"No, I'm not—" Quentin interrupts his own interruption, and Eliot makes himself turn around to face him. He looks stricken, mostly, and conflicted, staring down at Eliot's house slippers like they'll have a salient contribution to the conversation. "Um. Traveling is how we ended up in Fillory in the first place."

"Yeah?" Eliot doesn't really want to be having this conversation in the kitchen, with four cavernous feet of space in between them, but he can't make himself move from where he's standing, back against the counter, clinging to the edge with both hands. "I don't think you ever mentioned that before."

"That's because I hadn't," Quentin says. Eliot knew that, of course; he catalogs every scrap of information Quentin gives him about his life, a patchwork quilt of memories. "We never really figured out why it happened, exactly, other than it being Victoria's fault." Quentin sighs, rubs a hand over his face. " _Fault_ sounds bad. It was complicated. But most of the magical signature was hers, when Julia traced it afterwards."

"Did you try leaving again, with Victoria's Traveling?"

"It was, um. There was a lot going on, that kept us from doing that. At first we just didn't want to, because it was Fillory and, like, who wouldn't stay in Fillory, right? Victoria wasn't especially well-trained either. We were only first years, and she was afraid she'd mess something up and hurt someone. Then, after we were crowned, I don't think we were allowed to leave."

"Like in the books?" Eliot asks, which makes Quentin look up, a tiny smile blooming on his face. "The Chatwins came and went from Fillory at Ember and Umber's discretion."

"Do you have any idea," Quentin says as a dusting of pink spreads across his face, "how ridiculously sexy you are right now?"

Eliot smiles back helplessly, finally closing the gap between them like two magnets drawn together. "Yeah?" he says, cupping Quentin's jaw and tipping his face up with his thumb. "Should I keep talking fantasy to you?"

"I feel like we were having an important conversation," Quentin says, which doesn't stop him from sliding his hand around the back of Eliot's neck, pulling him down into a kiss. It's a deeper kiss than Eliot expected, insistent and open-mouthed, and he feels a little dizzy when Quentin finally breaks it. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"I was saying," Eliot starts, before realizing he doesn't remember what he was saying. He presses their foreheads together as he tries to track backwards through the past couple of minutes. "I think I was trying to go full Knowledge Kid on your Fillory experience. So you never tried to Travel back out? What happened to the rest of your class?"

"Umber let them go back, eventually. Not all at once, of course; you probably would've heard about it back at Brakebills if he'd done it that way. The kings and queens, though, we all stayed. Until, well." Quentin shrugs one shoulder. "You know."

Eliot does know. The circumstances of Quentin's expulsion from Fillory aren't a subject they need to revisit, ever. "So, Traveling to Fillory is definitely possible. Traveling _from_ Fillory is up in the air, but apparently Margo's guy is a top shelf Traveler with a Brakebills degree, so I think the odds are ever in our favor. All else fails and we get stuck somehow, we nicely ask Umber to—"

"No," Quentin says.

"No?"

Quentin pulls away, and Eliot expects him to retreat entirely again, but he comes right back, arms around Eliot's waist, tucking his face against Eliot's chest. "I don't want to see Umber." His voice has slipped into a slightly higher key, not quite panicked but on its way there. "I— I can't—"

"Hey, hey," Eliot soothes, wrapping his arms tightly around Quentin's shoulders. "We don't have to do anything, okay? This is all up to you. If you want to go back, it's going to be on your own terms, completely." That's the crux of it, Eliot thinks, unless he's totally missed the mark somehow: so much of Quentin's life — Fillory, Brakebills, his father's death, his parents' divorce, his mental health — has happened _to_ him, entirely out of his control. Impossibly, Eliot had been the first thing Quentin had ever truly chosen for himself.

"It's not that I don't want to go," Quentin mumbles into Eliot's shirt. "You get that, right?"

Eliot doesn't, not really; he only has one place in his past, and he never wants to go back there. He tries to imagine what it would be like, if he'd had a real friend in Indiana, but the notion makes his brain short out. "Okay, what if we asked Margo's friend to Travel Julia to us?"

"She wouldn't want to," Quentin immediately replies.

"Why do you think that?" Eliot asks, even though he's pretty sure he already knows Quentin's answer.

"Because she's better off," Quentin says, perfectly on-book. "She shouldn't— she _loves_ Fillory. Why would she give that up?"

God, Eliot's heart aches. He harbors no illusions that his pure and honest love for Quentin will _fix him_ somehow, as though that phrasing is even appropriate, let alone possible, but that doesn't make it sting any less when he's reminded of the depths of Quentin's self-loathing. He tucks Quentin's head under his chin and closes his eyes as he tries to decide what to say.

He's not any closer to figuring it out when Quentin says, in a small but certain voice, "I really do want to go back to Fillory, El. I'm just scared."

Eliot presses a kiss to the top of Quentin's head, breathes in the tea tree scent of Quentin's hair. "What are you scared of, love?"

"Everything?" Quentin's arms tighten around Eliot's waist, and Eliot squeezes right back. "I'm scared it'll be different. I'm scared it'll be exactly the same. I'm scared of seeing Julia. I'm scared Julia won't want to see me. I'm scared that Margo's friend will try to Travel me there and it won't work because I really am capital-B Banished and not just cast out or whatever. I'm scared that I'll get to Whitespire and instead of Julia and Josh and Victoria in the throne room it's Ember and Umber and Ember will laugh at me and send me back out to the Neitherlands except this time I won't find the fountain back to Earth and I'll die out there, cold and alone."

"That's a lot of very specific scenarios," Eliot says, trying to keep himself from shivering at the idea of Quentin dying cold and alone.

Quentin huffs a humorless laugh into Eliot's shirt. "My anxiety is both quick and thorough."

Eliot leans back, just enough to prompt Quentin to look up at him. "I'd go with you," he says. He wants to touch Quentin's face, brush his hair back from his eyes, wipe his tears away, but then he'd have to stop hugging him. "I'm on your side."

"Two against one," Quentin finishes, smile ghosting across his face at the reminder. "Except it's more like two against two. Or two against five. Or two against a whole world."

"I'd fight a whole world for you," Eliot tells him, which is probably a little dramatic, but he kind of means it. "I've killed before and I'd kill again."

Quentin's smile twists into something inscrutable. "I don't think killing Ember would solve anything. Believe me, I've thought about it." He sighs and lets go of Eliot's waist; Eliot loosens his grip, but keeps his arms draped around Quentin's shoulders, reluctant to release him entirely. "Sorry I've been so weird lately. I know, I know, _you're always weird,_ " he adds, in an extremely unflattering imitation of Eliot's voice. "I mean, like. I don't know. _Volatile._ " He wrinkles his nose as he says it. "I'm supposed to be the wise one."

"The only thing you're supposed to be is the person I love," Eliot counters. Quentin looks surprised, as though this is somehow brand new information. "You don't have to be anything else. Contrary to what most popular media will tell you, it's okay to feel your feelings."

"But I did that already." Quentin wriggles out of Eliot's arms, ducking his head for a moment to swipe his sleeve over his eyes. "It was two and a half years ago. It's not productive to keep dwelling on it."

Jesus Christ. "I've been having nightmares about how I murdered Logan Kinnear for half my life, Quentin. Do you think that's productive?" Quentin's face instantly goes pale, and Eliot has to turn away, walking back to the counter and putting both palms flat on the surface. He'd forgotten entirely about the half-mixed blondies; it feels like he'd been making them in another lifetime. "This is my fault."

"It's fine, El," Quentin says, even though it clearly isn't. "You didn't mean anything by it. Neither did Margo. You were both just trying to help."

"That's not—" Eliot has to laugh, because otherwise he'll cry, and where will that leave them? "I mean abolishing the Pact."

"We mutually decided that."

"Because of my mother, and my shocking family secret. You said it yourself, you'd dealt with your shit already. The only reason you dragged yours back out was because I had all this new and exciting shit."

There's a gentle touch on Eliot's arm, and he flinches away before he turns and realizes it was just Quentin, who's already retracted his hand, cradling it to his chest like he's been burned. His eyes are red, like he's holding back tears, but his voice is clear when he says, "That's not true at all."

Eliot blows out a breath. "Because it was your choice to tell me, right?"

" _No,_ " Quentin says. He sounds angry all of a sudden, determined, like he had back when he was bullying Eliot through the entire situation with Mike and Eliot's mother. "Because I _hadn't_ dealt with it. I'd let myself be upset about it for like, a grand total of fifteen seconds, and then I compartmentalized it. That's not _dealing with it._ "

Before Eliot realizes what's happening, Quentin snatches Eliot's phone from its perch on the stack of cookbooks, does a two-tut sequence that Eliot doesn't recognize, and brings the phone to his ear. Eliot opens his mouth to ask what the fuck is going on, but Quentin holds up one finger, the universal gesture for _shut up for a second._ "Hi, Margo? Sorry, this is Quentin. Um, El told me about your Traveler friend? Do you know when he might be available?" A pause, while Margo says something that Eliot can't hear. "Okay, cool. Just let me know. Or let El know, I guess. Thanks." He taps the end call button and holds the phone out to Eliot, one eyebrow raised like he's daring Eliot to say something snarky.

Eliot wants to say about ten different snarky things, but the one he settles on is, "Did you just spellhack my phone?"

"I know seven different spells for bypassing mundane phone security, El," Quentin says, punctuating it with an eye roll, "and I just used the most basic one on yours, so. You should probably take your infosec a little more seriously."

Eliot rolls his eyes right back as he takes his phone and returns it to the counter. "You're really sure about this? The Fillory thing?"

"No," Quentin scoffs. "I'm never sure about anything. But, um." He smiles up at Eliot almost shyly as he stretches up on his tiptoes for a quick kiss. "Sometimes my impulsive decisions work out."

\--

It's two weeks before Penny is able to make it to New York to attempt to shuttle Quentin and Eliot to Fillory — according to Margo, he and Kady both have jobs with an organization that Kady's mother works for, something involving Traveling the world to help magician kids in harmful or dangerous family situations. (Eliot allows himself one minute to feel resentful of the fact that this organization never helped him, to wonder if his father's magical legacy afforded his family some plausible deniability, before forcing himself to let it go.) They arrange to meet at Brakebills, since it's a location Penny is familiar with and therefore easiest to Travel back to. It's a cold spring afternoon when Quentin and Eliot take the portal to campus at the Alumni Association in SoHo, which only compounds the feeling of unreality when they walk out of the trees onto the bright warmth of the Sea, hand-in-hand. It's strange, Eliot thinks, finally being here together; he tries to imagine what Quentin was like, during his year at Brakebills before being spirited away, and doesn't quite know where to start.

"I bet you were insufferable when you went to school here," Quentin tells him immediately, leaning over and hugging Eliot's arm.

"Excuse you," Eliot says, feigning a greater degree of indignation than he actually feels, since Quentin is basically correct. "I was top of my class. Beloved by all. Cottage parties became legendary under my expert guidance."

"And you're so humble about it, too." Quentin's barely able to get the sentence out before he starts laughing. He tugs them to a stop in the middle of the Sea, yanking indelicately on the collar of Eliot's shirt to drag him down into a long, thorough kiss. When they break apart, Quentin's smiling at him, radiant. "I've always wanted to do that."

"What, kiss me?" Eliot teases. "You've had abundant opportunities."

"No, kiss someone I love while on the campus of my super-elite secret magic school. Idiot."

"Okay," Eliot says, barely suppressing his laughter, "I'm sensing some mixed messages here."

"Shut up," Quentin tells him pleasantly — as he hooks his foot around Eliot's ankle, throwing him off balance just enough that he lands on his ass, his fall noticeably cushioned by the invisible pull of magic. Quentin's on him in seconds, crawling into his lap, pushing him down onto his back and kissing him deeply.

They make out like students for a few luxurious minutes, Eliot tangling his fingers in Quentin's hair while Quentin's thumb strokes Eliot's cheek. Eventually Quentin starts kissing a path along Eliot's jaw, but it's slow, aimless. Eliot's eyes drift closed, and he lets Quentin's mouth reach his ear and start back down his neck before whispering, "You're stalling, love."

Quentin blows out a breath before settling his head on Eliot's shoulder. "Was it that obvious?"

"Mmmhmm." Eliot slides one hand from Quentin's hair down his back, rubbing in soothing circles. "You can still call this off, you know."

"I mean, not really. We're already here. So's Penny, presumably, and I'm being an asshole making him wait while I have a desperate make out session with my arrogant boyfriend."

"I truly do not appreciate your tone," Eliot says, his offense so blatantly affected that neither of them are able to keep a straight face, and Eliot ends up kissing Quentin again, which only serves to undermine his original point.

Quentin pushes himself up afterwards, sitting back on Eliot's thighs and running both hands through his own hair. The afternoon sun forms a corona of light around him, and it's so easy, suddenly, for Eliot to picture Quentin in a crown, on a throne. Impossible, too, to imagine looking at him and feeling anything other than helpless adoration. Eliot's certainly never managed it, at least.

"So, um," Quentin says, nervous laughter bubbling out of him, "I have no fucking idea where the Consciousness Building is."

Eliot would've liked to have picked the Cottage as their meeting place, but its location on campus isn't fixed, which might've been confusing for Penny, both from a Traveling standpoint and a mundane navigation standpoint. "Well, that's easy," he says, nudging Quentin's leg with his own in what he hopes is a clear _unfortunately, you need to get off of me_ signal. "Find the most obnoxious losers on campus and follow them home."

"Funny," Quentin says as he rolls to his feet, then holds his hand out to help Eliot up, "seems like I'm already talking to the most obnoxious loser on campus."

God, Quentin is the worst. Eliot loves him so much. "Likewise," he snaps back pleasantly. He considers eschewing Quentin's assistance — it would be ridiculously simple to push himself upright with a wave of telekinesis — but he's always been weak for the hand-extended _do you trust me_ moment.

So he takes Quentin's hand.

The Consciousness Building is on the far southwestern side of campus, which, as it turns out, is also where the Cottage is hanging out today. Quentin stops in his tracks when he sees it, and they stand there for a minute, looking at the place that was once a home to both of them, albeit not at the same time.

"You know, they couldn't figure out my discipline right away," Quentin says. "Everyone else moved out of the dorms, but I just. Stayed. For a long time, by myself. Then, when we were at South, Julia wouldn't stop testing me for stuff. We couldn't even speak to each other because of Mayakovsky's fucked up teaching methods, but she figured out ways to do it." He chews nervously on his bottom lip for a couple of seconds. "God, I only got to live here for like— a month, maybe? I was surprised, when I got back, that they hadn't thrown out all my stuff."

"Not much reason to, I suppose, when you have infinitely expanding closet space." Eliot kind of wants to go inside, to revisit the scene of his multitude of crimes, but he knows it won't be the same. Besides, they didn't come here for Eliot's sake.

Penny is leaning against the wall of the Consciousness Building when they get there; if he's annoyed that they're late, he doesn't show it. Eliot does kind of remember this guy, now that he sees him in person rather than in photographs on social media. Margo was right, he definitely hadn't come to any Cottage parties, but Kady had never really come to those parties either, and the two of them are definitely a matched set in Eliot's refreshed memories. Quentin nudges Eliot's side with his elbow, which Eliot is pretty sure means _is this the guy?_ Eliot responds by putting his hand on the small of Quentin's back and pushing him forward, just a little.

"Hey, um, Penny?" Quentin says. It reminds Eliot of the first time he and Quentin had met, at that coffee shop in Midtown. _Are you Eliot? Oh, thank god, I've asked the last six people who've come in. It was getting really embarrassing._ "Hi, I'm Quentin. This is Eliot. I really, really appreciate this."

"Not a problem," Penny says, though his tone is ambiguous enough that Eliot can't decide if it _is_ actually a problem. He pushes himself up from the wall and heads over to the front door of the Consciousness Building. "There's a room here that I used to use as an anchor point, back when I was still learning the Traveler ropes. Earth locations are easy now, but it might be harder to jump back from a parallel world, so."

Quentin nods, like this makes perfect sense to him; Eliot is willing to leave this one to the expert. Penny waves his hand over a nondescript security pad next to the door, which Eliot catches Quentin staring at with an adorable level of professional curiosity, and they all enter the building together, Penny leading the way. It's a bit labyrinthine inside, at least by Eliot's straightforward Cottage standards, but they eventually make it to a little room with a bunch of crystals and other woo-woo psychic garbage in it.

"Okay, so Margo gave me the rundown on what we're doing," Penny says. He sounds incredibly chill for someone who's about to casually taxi two strangers to an alternate dimension. "I've never been to Fillory before, but she picked out some descriptive passages from the books, so I've got a pretty good idea of where I'm aiming. It's not a big deal if I miss the target, though, because we'll just get spit out in the Neitherlands instead. Do you know about the Neitherlands?"

Eliot looks sidelong at Quentin; if he didn't know Quentin's face so well, he'd probably be fooled by his show of bravery. "Um," Quentin says, eyes darting away nervously for a fraction of a second. "I. I've been there before, yeah."

"Cool," Penny replies, either tactfully ignoring Quentin's hesitation or totally oblivious to it. "So from there we can either find the Fillory fountain or try another jump, whichever works for you. Lemme just get my bearings in here before we go. Some stuff's been moved around since I graduated."

Penny turns away, looking at the tapestries hanging on the wall, and Eliot kind of gets the sense that maybe he's bullshitting to give Quentin one last chance to opt out. Eliot tugs on Quentin's arm, maneuvering him around so they're facing each other. "Hey," he whispers, brushing Quentin's hair away from his face with the backs of his fingers, "you good?"

"Oh, sure." Quentin's whispering too, but Eliot can still hear the nervous strain in his voice. "You know, just gonna casually pop back into the magical kingdom I used to rule. Totally normal Saturday."

Eliot has already asked Quentin if he's sure about this approximately thirty times today, but that doesn't stop the urge to do it again. He manages to bite it back, somehow. "I love you," he says instead. "You know that, right?"

Quentin rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. "You don't have to be such a drama queen about it." He peers around Eliot, to where Penny is standing. "We're ready if you are."

There's a circle painted on the ground with a series of symbols along the inside edge, evenly spaced like the numbers of a clock. Penny steps forward to stand in the circle, then shakes out his hands before holding them out for Quentin and Eliot to take. There are tattoos on all of Penny's fingers, Eliot notices, and tracing up the inside of his arms, which share some of the same symbols as the ones in the circle. "You two can keep holding hands if you want," Penny says without a hint of judgment in his tone, "so long as you're holding mine, too."

Eliot's never Traveled before, and he's not certain that Quentin's accidental-Traveling experience will be comparable, so he's not quite sure what to expect. What he _had_ expected was some kind of warning from Penny, a countdown or at least a signal, but instead, mere seconds after Eliot grips Penny's hand—

The room disappears.

And then they're in a forest.

It doesn't seem so different, at first, from how it feels to walk out of the Brakebills portal, like they had less than an hour ago, other than the fact that there's no portal-related nausea. If Eliot didn't know any better, he'd think they _were_ still at Brakebills, or in some other forest on Earth. But there's subtle differences, if you know where to look: Eliot spots a cluster of mushrooms with brightly colored checkered caps growing in the shade of a tree he can't identify, and when he breathes in deeply, the air makes him feel a little lightheaded.

"Oh my god," Quentin is saying, tearing his hand out of Eliot's grip and stumbling forward a few steps. "Oh my god. Eliot." When he spins back around, there's tears glistening on his cheeks. "El. It's Fillory."

\--

It takes a little while for Quentin to stop crying long enough to get his bearings. As it turns out, the clearing where they landed is roughly the same place that Quentin and his classmates had popped in the first time, which means Castle Whitespire is actually visible in the distance. Quentin has to take a moment with that too; Eliot doesn't mind, of course, and Penny doesn't say anything either, which earns him a handful of points in Eliot's book. Since it was mid-afternoon back at Brakebills, it should be nearly sunset by the time they start off towards the castle, but the sun is high in the sky when they emerge from the trees.

"It turns out that time isn't quite as variable as it seemed in the books," Quentin explains as they walk. He's got one of his hands tangled up with Eliot's again, swinging their arms excitedly between them; Penny's following behind like some kind of obedient, sentient taxi cab. "Like, it definitely doesn't match up one to one, but it's not like I went back to Earth ten years older than everyone else." The smile slips from his face, transforming into something pensive. "At least, I hope it stayed that way. I don't know, maybe—"

"Only one way to find out," Eliot interrupts, a blatant attempt to head off Quentin's anxiety spiral. "It seemed pretty contrived in the books, anyway. Like Plover only remembered the time differences when it was convenient or dramatic for the story."

Just like that, Quentin's grinning again. Eliot should've started beefing up his obscure fantasy knowledge way sooner. "That was pretty much the conclusion I came to, yeah. Like, even before I knew Fillory was real. There were huge debates about it in the Fillory fan communities online, because the timeline never made any fucking sense no matter how you tried to piece it together. Now I'm pretty sure Plover either massively exaggerated the time slippage or just totally made it up. It would've been a good narrative device, too, if he'd just been consistent about it."

Eliot keeps Quentin talking the whole way to the castle; he doesn't even have to try very hard, really. All he does is ask innocent, leading questions — are those talking beavers or regular ones? which direction is Loria from here? those mountains in the distance, have you ever been there? — and Quentin always has a wildly verbose answer, which often leads into a tangent, which leads into a different tangent. Quentin has no shortage of things he's passionate about, but Eliot's never seen him quite like this before, rattling off stories like some kind of adorable minstrel. They get steadily closer to a little town that lies outside the castle walls, but Quentin seems to be actively ignoring that fact, and Eliot is content to let him until they're walking past the first building, which seems to be some kind of inn.

Quentin's lapsed into silence, so Eliot says, "Kind of looks like the town in Maleficent."

"I thought so too," Quentin replies. There's a strain in his voice that hadn't been there before. "This town isn't ever described in the books, so. If it was an homage, the designer must've actually been here." He glances at Eliot for a second before looking away again. "I couldn't tell you that, when we watched it."

It had been back in the days of the Pact, maybe a year after they'd started living together, and maybe six months after Eliot had instituted a weekly movie night in what seemed to him to be a transparent attempt to drag Quentin out of a depressive episode. It had been Quentin's turn to pick that week, and Eliot had groused loudly and insincerely about being subjected to yet another fantasy movie but feigned placation at the promise of Evil Angelina Jolie. "See," Eliot says now, bumping his arm against Quentin's shoulder, "I _was_ paying attention."

But Quentin doesn't respond. His hand is still gripping hard onto Eliot's, but he can't tell if Quentin's palm is sweaty due to nervousness or just from the fact that he's been holding Eliot's hand nonstop for upwards of an hour. When he glances over at Quentin, he doesn't immediately see any of the usual signs of imminent panic attack. If anything, Quentin seems strangely calm. They walk in silence through the town; they see a few people, here and there, going about their day, and if they notice the three Children of Earth walking down the main thoroughfare, they don't react in any way. Eliot can't decide if that's a good sign or a bad one.

They're nearly to the gates of the castle when Eliot finally succumbs to his own steadily pulsing anxiety. "You okay?" he whispers.

"No," Quentin says. He doesn't elaborate.

There's a guard at the gate of the castle, which Eliot somehow didn't expect. He's not sure what he expected out of any of this; fantasy narratives always conveniently skip over minutiae like gaining access to the throne room. He's weighing the options — he can probably sweet talk this guard, and if that doesn't work he's got the power of telekinetic binding on his side — but when they get close enough, an astonished smile blossoms across the guard's face. "High King Quentin!" he exclaims. "Is that really you?"

Quentin's answering smile looks genuine enough, but his hand twists nervously against Eliot's. "Hi, Aven," he says, which makes Aven's entire face light up. "It's, um, nice to see you. Is, uh—" The breath Quentin takes is hovering dangerously close to the realm of hyperventilating. "Ju— High Queen Julia? Is she here?"

"Oh, yes, High King Quentin, right this way." Aven immediately grimaces, rubbing a hand over his face. "Of course, you don't need me to show you where the throne room is. Who are your companions? More Children of Earth?"

"Yeah." Quentin's gaze darts quickly over to Eliot, then over his shoulder to Penny, then back to Aven. "Th-they can come too, right?"

Aven lets out a short laugh before covering his hand with his mouth. "My apologies, High King Quentin. Of course your guests are welcome in the castle." He turns away to pull some levers, making the door swing open; when he turns back, he bows deeply. "Welcome back."

"Thank you," Quentin replies faintly, only hesitating for a moment before crossing the threshold.

For all of Plover's apparent creative license when describing most other aspects of Fillory, Castle Whitespire looks almost exactly the way Eliot had pictured it when reading the books. Quentin leads the way through a series of hallways, up several spiraling flights of stairs; none of it seems especially practical, from a castle-design standpoint, but it certainly _looks_ cool. No one says anything, and Eliot holds back all of his questions, mostly because he's certain every single one of them will just make Quentin even more distressed. It's bad enough already, with Quentin walking just far enough ahead that Eliot can't see his face, only the stubborn set of his shoulders.

Finally, when Eliot's fully lost track of where the fuck they are, Quentin says, "I don't think he meant anything by it."

Eliot tries valiantly to pick up the dangling thread of Quentin's statement, but has to admit defeat. "Who didn't mean anything by what?"

"Aven," Quentin says. "By calling—" Another deep breath, which is certainly Quentin's attempt to steady himself. It doesn't seem to be working, as far as Eliot can tell. "Calling me High King."

"Oh," Eliot says. That had been on his list of questions, actually, but it was pretty low on the hierarchy of importance, which was roughly inverse to the hierarchy of what will make Quentin upset. Seems like he'd ranked it correctly.

"He just didn't know what else to call me," Quentin goes on, his voice sounding increasingly panicked. He's doggedly leading the way forward, so Eliot still can't see his face. "He's trained to be respectful, even though he doesn't have any reason to be. It's— habit."

Well. What the fuck is Eliot supposed to say to that?

It doesn't matter, it turns out, because they turn a corner and the hall opens up into a spacious room with a domed ceiling and a bank of latticed windows letting in sunlight. Quentin stops abruptly in the doorway, and Eliot moves into place right beside him. There's a raised dais in the center, with a line of four thrones, three of which are unoccupied.

And sitting primly in the fourth throne is a man with hooves and ram's horns.

"Well, this is fucking typical," Quentin says.

There were moments, while Eliot was reading Fillory and Further, when he would reach a passage that would suddenly illuminate a portion of Quentin's story, and one of those was the introduction of the twin ram gods Ember and Umber. Chaos and Order, one intended to balance the other, though naturally it didn't always play out that way. If Eliot hadn't known any better, he would've assumed it was for dramatic irony, yet another example of narrative license taken by Plover when he stole the Chatwins' stories. He doesn't know for sure which god this is now — Plover's differentiation of them was irritatingly vague — but Eliot weighs both options and finds that he's equally angry with both of them. It might have been Ember who'd spoken the words which banished Quentin from his kingdom, but Umber's inaction makes him just as guilty.

"What a delightful surprise!" Ember-or-Umber says. He stands up and steps down from the dais, but doesn't come any closer. Eliot feels an urge to step in front of Quentin anyway, to shield him from harm. "Your absence has been sorely felt, these last two years."

"You have your brother to thank for that." So, this is Umber, probably. Eliot's hand hurts from how tightly Quentin is squeezing it. "Is he here too, somewhere? Waiting to make a grand entrance?"

Umber frowns. His expression is soft, almost gentle. _Pitying,_ which Eliot knows Quentin hates more than anything. "Ember is not here, no. When we sensed your return to Fillory, I suggested that he stay away."

"Why bother?" Quentin says. "What else could he possibly do to hurt me?" He lets go of Eliot's hand so he can cross his arms over his chest; Eliot has to make do with pressing his palm to the small of Quentin's back instead, not sure if it's comforting but unwilling to stop touching him. "Unless you're just trying to protect him."

"Maybe so. I do not begrudge you your anger, High King Quentin."

Quentin goes very, very still. "Don't," he says, so softly that even Eliot can barely hear him.

Umber clearly didn't hear at all, because he goes on as if Quentin hadn't reacted. "Many things have happened here in Fillory, these past two years. The uprising was quelled by the remaining monarchs soon after your departure, and some reforms were put in place. A few new seats on the High Council, that sort of thing. A lovely way for everything to have worked out, very peaceful and orderly. It's a shame you didn't arrive a few days earlier, High King Quentin. You missed the spring festival."

Quentin makes a noise that Eliot can't properly define, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I missed the spring festival," he echoes, voice wavering, but louder now. "You _kicked me out._ "

"I did no such thing," Umber replies. "And you know how my brother is. He had his fun, and now we've all moved on, haven't we? I'm certain he would agree that you're welcome back whenever you'd like."

"You—" Quentin turns on his heel, away from Umber, running both hands furiously through his hair. Eliot wants to rush in, to gather Quentin in his arms, but he knows that's not what Quentin needs right now. He feels completely useless; was this how Quentin felt, at that restaurant with Eliot and his mother? After a moment Quentin turns back, and Eliot can plainly see the torment on his face as he says, "Are you fucking with me right now?"

" _Fucking with you_ is Ember's purview, not mine." Umber takes a step forward, and Quentin takes a step back. Eliot stays where he is. "I thought you would be happy. Don't you want to come home?"

"Now I know you're definitely fucking with me," Quentin says. Eliot wants to turn, to see Quentin's face, but he doesn't want to take his eyes off Umber, in case he— what? Draws a weapon? Casts a spell? What could Eliot hope to do to a god, anyway? But he meant what he'd said, back at the apartment; he'd fight everyone in Fillory for Quentin if he had to, gods included. "There's some kind of price, right? That's how this sort of thing always works. There's a trick, or a catch. Like, I can come back to Fillory, but I have to give up Earth."

Eliot's watched enough movies with Quentin over the past two years to know exactly what Quentin's not saying: _I can come back to Fillory, but I have to give up Eliot._

"Do you think so little of us, High King Quentin?" Umber sounds almost gentle now, like he's soothing a startled animal. "You've missed Fillory, haven't you? Fillory has missed you."

Quentin storms forward a few steps, past Eliot, stopping in the middle of the tiled floor. "You don't get to do that," he says. "You don't get to take everything from me, to— to ruin my _whole life,_ and then tell me it was a joke. To tell me that Fillory _missed me._ "

"My brother regretted many things—"

"Shut the fuck up. That's exactly what I knew you'd say, so don't you fucking dare."

"High King Quentin—"

"Stop _calling_ me that!" Quentin's voice is fractured around the edges; Eliot wants to hug him and never let go. "You _do not._ Get to fucking call me that."

Eliot can feel it then: the whip and crackle of magic in the air, imbued with Quentin's anger and pain and despair. He remembers what Quentin had told him, the very first time they'd talked about Fillory — _finally I couldn't fucking take it anymore_ — and Eliot's heart leaps into his throat.

"That's _enough!_ "

Everyone in the room turns towards the doorway, where a small woman wearing an elegant gown and a crown of dark stones is standing, looking absolutely fucking furious. She's older, obviously, than she is in all of Quentin's old photographs, but there's no doubt in Eliot's mind that this is Julia Wicker. She sweeps past Penny, past Eliot, past even Quentin and Umber to take her place on the dais, in front of the largest of the four thrones.

"Umber," she says, her voice ringing through the room even though she's not shouting, "you are not welcome here."

Eliot expects some kind of confrontation, a violent clash, like in all of Quentin's fantasy movies, but Umber simply gives Julia a deferential bow. "My deepest apologies, High King Julia," he says before turning back to Quentin and adding, "The offer still stands."

And then Umber disappears.

Quentin's shoulders sag as soon as Umber's gone, as though only the force of his indignation was keeping him upright. Eliot closes the gap between them instantly, sweeping Quentin into his arms like he's been aching to since the moment they walked into the throne room. It hadn't quite been as bad as one of Quentin's imagined worse-case-scenarios, but it hadn't been the casual, uneventful visit Eliot had been hoping for either. "You are so fucking brave," Eliot tells him, sliding his hand up to pet softly at Quentin's hair.

They stay like that for a minute, clinging to each other, heedless of the fantasy world around them and their two-person audience. Quentin's deep breaths eventually become less shaky, and he pulls away, turning to look at Julia, who's still standing patiently in front of her throne. "Hey, Jules."

"Hey yourself," she replies, casual, like it hasn't been two and a half years since they've seen each other. Then she smiles, that same smile that Eliot has seen in countless photographs, and spreads her arms wide. "What, am I too good for a hug?"

Quentin, inexplicably, looks over his shoulder at Eliot, as though he somehow needs permission from his boyfriend to hug his best friend, which might be the most ridiculous thing Quentin has ever done in the time they've known each other. But Eliot is feeling magnanimous, so instead of teasing, he waves his hand and says, "Go on, love."

Eliot doesn't think he's ever seen Quentin move this quickly before, as he throws himself across the remaining space and into Julia's waiting arms with so much force that Eliot sees her stagger backwards. He can hear Quentin's voice, too quiet to make out the words, and he can tell from the way Quentin's shoulders ripple that he's crying into Julia's hair. She embraces him in turn, her hands splayed across his back like twin stars.

He's not sure how much time has passed when he feels a tug on his sleeve, pulling him out of his reverie. Penny. "Should probably leave them alone, yeah?"

"No," Quentin says from across the room, disentangling himself from Julia so he can turn halfway around. "No, I really want you two to meet."

Somehow, with the abundance of other worries, Eliot hadn't found room to even think about properly meeting Julia. He'd never met Mike's family, even after years together, but he'd always gotten the impression that Mike's family situation was similar to his own. In retrospect, Mike had never said a word about it, yet another red flag that Eliot's rose-colored glasses had hidden from view. With Quentin, Eliot _knows_ their situations are the same — eerily so, now that Eliot's father is dead — with the exception of Julia, the family that Quentin had chosen for himself. There's a parallel to be drawn with Margo, certainly, but Eliot and Quentin hadn't been dating when Quentin had first met Margo, which made the stakes lower, at least from Eliot's perspective. But, then again, Eliot's perspective has always been a bit shitty.

The smile fades from Quentin's face when he sees whatever expression is on Eliot's, and he glances back towards Julia before crossing the room again to grab hold of both of Eliot's hands. "Do you need a minute?" he says softly. "Or, um, I mean, you don't _have_ to..."

Eliot notices it then, so obvious he's not sure how he missed it: Quentin's scared too. Of course he would be; Julia's the most important person in his life, and Eliot— Eliot doesn't want to make assumptions about his own place on Quentin's mental hierarchy, but he knows where Quentin ranks on his. "No, it's not that."

"She's not, like, gonna have you executed or something." Quentin's face is deadly serious, but the teasing lilt in his voice betrays him. His thumbs run soothing circles along the insides of Eliot's wrists. "Just, you know. I'd kind of like my best friend to meet the love of my life."

"How do you just _say_ shit like that?" Eliot says, laughing helplessly. He knows Julia's watching and waiting — Jesus, _Penny_ is watching and waiting — but he can't resist leaning down and kissing Quentin's forehead, and his cheek, and the edge of his smiling mouth.

"I dunno," Quentin says, "must've been all those super sappy romcoms my roommate made me watch."

In all those super sappy romcoms, the protagonist — or the love interest; which one is Eliot, anyway? — always manages to get their shit together and be brave when it really counts. So Eliot squeezes both of Quentin's hands before letting go to approach Julia's throne, not hesitating for a second before dropping to one knee in front of it. Why the fuck not, right? He can go full Ever After. "It is my greatest honor to finally meet you, Your Majesty."

"Oh, _cute,_ " Julia laughs. "Where'd you dig this one up, Q?"

Quentin kicks Eliot hard in the calf, immediately followed by wrenching hard on his shoulder, trying to drag him upright. "Oh, the usual," he says, while Eliot lets Quentin push him around. "Posted an ad on LiSpace. Brakebills Sort-Of Graduate Seeking World's Most Embarrassing Boyfriend."

Eliot makes a show of brushing off his clothes before offering Julia his most winning smile. "Hi, I'm Eliot."

\--

All of them, Penny included, end up sitting around the table that's off to the side of the throne room, which Eliot guesses functions as some kind of high council meeting space on a normal day. The conversation is dominated by Quentin and Julia, trading stories from the past two and a half years. Almost all of Quentin's anecdotes are about Eliot, which makes a certain logical sense, though it does seem sad, in retrospect, how much Quentin's life had revolved around Eliot simply because Eliot was the only thing in it. Quentin's telling of it isn't particularly sad, but Eliot knows all the pieces Quentin is leaving out: the days when Quentin would come home from work and immediately disappear into his bedroom, or the times when Eliot would go on a date with Mike and come home the next morning to find that Quentin hadn't remembered to eat, or the mornings where it was perfectly obvious to Eliot that Quentin hadn't been able to sleep the night before.

It does get happier, overall, after the story of how Quentin and Eliot started dating (all details about Eliot's family tactfully omitted). That's good, Eliot thinks. He hopes he can keep it that way.

Truthfully, Eliot sort of zones out a bit while Julia's talking. He watches Quentin's face instead, lit up in a particular way that Eliot's never seen before. Eliot knows what love looks like on Quentin, and this isn't quite the same, but— he loves Julia, so much. Has loved her for most of his life. How is it fair that they've been stuck in two different worlds?

Or, well. They were. Eliot's been trying not to think too much about that.

Because, if Quentin decides to stay here in Fillory, that's Eliot's fault, right? Quentin never would've come back here if Eliot hadn't suggested it. Maybe Quentin would ask Eliot to stay with him, but then what if it turns out Quentin was right, about Umber making Quentin pay a price? What scares Eliot, and is scaring him even more by the second, is that, if Quentin were faced with choosing between Eliot and Fillory, Eliot isn't sure at all which one he'd pick.

He can't think about it. He _can't._

The sunlight slowly fades from the room, and some palace servants bring in a meal that's entirely vegetable-based but surprisingly delicious. Josh and Victoria show up during dinner, and hugs are exchanged but they don't stick around for long — something about having to leave first thing in the morning, something something Loria, blah blah. Eliot really isn't paying attention anymore, totally consumed by the Quentin-esque hamster wheel of anxiety that's manifested in his head. Julia has gotten Penny talking about his job — which is nice in an abstract way, both that Julia is thoughtful enough to include him and that Penny has a job that he seems to really care about — when Eliot feels a gentle touch on his arm.

"Hey," Quentin says softly. His chair is pushed up right next to Eliot's, which hadn't been the case before; Eliot's not quite sure when it happened. Quentin rests his hand on Eliot's leg, leans over and puts his head against Eliot's shoulder. "You doing okay?"

Eliot hums noncommittally as he slides his hand on top of Quentin's, interlacing their fingers. "Just tired."

"Yeah," Quentin agrees. "Ready to go?"

Wait, what? "Shouldn't I be asking you that question?"

Quentin lifts his head so he can look at Eliot's face. "I would think my answer is implicit, seeing as I'm the one who made the suggestion."

"You're clearly not very tired if you can still construct sentences like that," Eliot says, leaning in to give Quentin a kiss.

But Quentin, infuriatingly, leans away and turns towards Julia and Penny. "Excuse us for a second," he tells them, wriggling his hand out from underneath Eliot's so he can perform a long sequence of tuts that results in a prismatic barrier encasing the two of them, head to toe. Maxwell's Cone of Silence. "Don't deflect," Quentin snaps, now that no one else can hear them. "Seriously, what's up?"

Julia and Penny might not be able to hear, but they'll certainly see if Eliot visibly breaks down, so he makes himself as calm as possible before saying, "I thought maybe you'd want to stay."

Quentin's face twists in disbelief. "Why would you think that?"

"Because you can? Because Umber said—"

"I don't give a shit what Umber said," Quentin interrupts. He reaches for both of Eliot's hands, squeezing them tightly between his own. "Jesus, El, have you been worrying about this the whole time?"

"Well," Eliot says faintly, "I learned from the best."

Quentin pulls Eliot's hands to his chest, cradling them there like they're something precious. "I'm not staying here, love. My home is back on Earth, with you."

The coiled-tight thing in Eliot's chest begins to tentatively unravel, but— "You'll be visiting, though. To see Julia."

"I—" Quentin looks down at their joined hands, chewing nervously on his bottom lip, before glancing over to Julia. Her features are indistinct through the shimmering light of the spell — honestly, why hasn't anyone fixed this dumb spell so the image is obscured on both sides? — but Eliot thinks she's probably watching them. "No, I'm not."

Somehow, the idea of Quentin giving up Julia for Eliot is even more painful than the reverse. "Quentin..."

"I know," Quentin says. "While you were apparently worrying, I've been thinking. About what Umber said, and about what Ember probably thinks, and what Julia could do as the High King."

Eliot knows this is very important and dramatic, but— "Wait, sorry, High King?"

Quentin rolls his eyes at the interruption, but he's smiling too. "Yeah, she took over for me." Right, Umber had said that, hadn't he? "I was, like, _attempting_ to make Fillory more progressive while I was here, but I guess she decided, you know, fuck the patriarchy. Honestly, thank god, because I can't imagine what would've happened if Josh had ended up in charge." He sighs, his fingers flexing nervously around Eliot's. "Anyway, _as I was saying._ I thought about all that stuff, all the Fillory stuff, and then I realized that none of it matters. Sure, I missed Julia, and I missed the _idea_ of Fillory, but—" He tilts his head back, looking up at what he can see of the domed ceiling. "I don't want to come back here ever again."

Three days after Eliot had graduated from high school, he'd taken the jar of change hidden in the back corner of his closet and spent nearly an hour rolling it all up to take to the bank. As it turned out, even years of careful skimming and saving wasn't quite enough for a bus ticket to New York, so he'd had to steal a twenty from his dad's wallet to make up the difference. Even now, a decade later, he remembers with perfect clarity the way he felt as he watched the station recede through the windows of the bus: freedom, cold and crystalline, a bone-deep fear but also overpowering relief. The curtain falling on act one, an intermission in the form of a roaring engine and the steady monotony of the highway. Eliot's act two was going to be a whole new story, one that he got to write entirely for himself.

But Quentin had never gotten his big act one finale. No matter how much he'd tried to convince himself otherwise, part of him had never really moved on. Eliot had worried that what he'd orchestrated for Quentin was a revival, but maybe it was a reprise, a reminder of what act one had been like, and how act two has made everything change.

"You're really okay with that?" Eliot asks. He tilts his head towards Julia, so he doesn't have to say what he really means out loud.

Quentin lets go of Eliot's hands and shrugs. "No, not really," he admits. "Not that part, anyway. But she has to stay here, especially if she's High King, so— I mean, that's part of growing up, right? You don't always get to keep everything you want."

No, fuck that. Quentin deserves everything. Deserves the world. Two of them, if he wants. Eliot snaps his hands through the counterspell for Maxwell's Cone of Silence and turns back towards Julia. "Hey," he says to her, hoping to god he's not mixing up his references, "the magic buttons. Did Plover make those up?"

Julia blinks, surprised, before her expression turns thoughtful. "Holy shit," she says. "I can't believe I didn't remember those."

"I can't believe _I_ didn't remember those," Quentin says. He's leaning back in his chair, scrubbing a hand over his face and back through his hair. "Obviously that's the loophole to the whole monarchs-bound-to-Fillory thing. That was the _whole point_ of them, in the books, but we never got to see anyone use one because the sixth book never came out, so it was just, like, a weird one sentence plot hook that never panned out."

"They were in the desert, right?" Julia asks. "With the talking rabbits. I can't go myself, not until Josh and Victoria get back from Loria, but— fuck, Q. It would change everything." She leans across the table, excitement lighting up her face. "You could come with me, Q. If you wanted. A quest, just like the old days."

When Eliot looks at Quentin, he expects his expression to be conflicted, torn between the declaration he'd just made to Eliot inside the Cone of Silence and the entreaty Julia is making now. Instead, Quentin looks— a little sad, maybe, but resolute. "Thanks, Jules, but honestly... I just really want to go home."

\--

It isn't until they're back in Brooklyn, lying in bed with their legs tangled together, that Eliot feels safe enough to say what's been swirling through his heart since Penny Traveled them back to Brakebills. "Hey," he says, sweeping his thumb gently over Quentin's cheek. "Thanks for choosing me."

Quentin looks surprised for a moment before it melts into a smile. He leans into Eliot's touch, his eyes drifting closed. "It wasn't a choice. Not this time. Even before we went, I'd accepted that, even if I did get to see Julia, I'd probably never see her again. And, I mean, you found a solution, assuming the buttons are real, but—" He turns his face, kisses Eliot's palm. "Staying in Fillory was never what I wanted. What I want is the life I have with you."

God, Eliot is so totally fucking in love. He tips his head up to kiss Quentin's temple. "Seriously, all those romcoms rotted your brain."

"I don't know," Quentin says, nudging Eliot's shoulder until he rolls on his back, Quentin hovering over him. "I think some of them had some pretty good ideas."

**Author's Note:**

> i think i ended up taking a lot of liberties with fillory in this fic, so please pretend that any mistakes were choices that i made on purpose.
> 
> for an endless stream of my descent into madness as a result of this television show, you can follow me on [tumblr](https://akisazame.tumblr.com/).


End file.
